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Central Bank Keeps a Lid on Bond Buys

ECB's Approach Adds to Pressure on Euro-Zone Governments

By

Brian Blackstone

November 29, 2011

FRANKFURT—The European Central Bank has showed no sign of abandoning its conservative approach to buying government bonds in recent days, keeping the pressure on euro-zone governments to take the lead in stemming the region's debt crisis.

Euro-zone governments are privately—and sometimes publicly—clamoring for the ECB to intervene massively in financial markets and stop the rise in some governments' borrowing costs to ruinous levels. But bank officials gave no hint Monday of an imminent escalation of its limited bond...